


Santa! I know him!

by awkwardsorta



Series: Torres and Mata's Nursery [2]
Category: Football RPF
Genre: Christmas, Established Relationship, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-25 00:52:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/633346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awkwardsorta/pseuds/awkwardsorta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Lorna: the nursery is holding a Christmas party, and Mark is not so much invited, as strong-armed into taking part.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Santa! I know him!

"Elves?"

Mark Noble looked doubtfully at his boyfriend, Ricardo, who smiled broadly and kept taking off his clothes. Mark folded his trousers absentmindedly.

"I'm not sure I'm really-"

"Matt is doing it."

" _Matty_ is going to be an elf?" Mark sighed and threw the trousers, now folded, down on a chair. "Of course Matty is going to be an elf."

Ricardo laughed, and pulled his socks off.

"You would make a lovely elf," he said. "All the parents are joining in."

Mark looked sceptical. Ricardo laughed again. "I can't take you seriously when you're looking cross in your pants," he said, and that, for a while, was that.

\---

Mark sent a text to Matt in his lunchbreak the next day.

_Thanks for showing me up!_

Matt called him back almost instantly.

"Pipe down," he said. "We've made costumes for the panto and the christmas play, cakes for the christmas bake sale, and cards for everyone in Georgia's class, and you're moaning about putting on a hat with bells on?"

"That's awful. You overachiever!"

Matt laughed. "Mate, you have it all to look forward to."

Mark was outside the office, in a tiny landscaped area between the building front and the road. There was a bench, which he was sitting on, a bare tree and a small and low-filled pond. He regarded this pond with some intensity and said, "I'm really not the elf type."

"You're short," Matt said, "and generally pretty cheerful, and you work in manufacturing. Please tell me in what way you are not an elf."

Mark sighed and gave up.

\---

A few days later, Ricardo showed up at Mark's door with a plastic bag and a delighted grin. Mark squinted at him. "This doesn't look good," he said.

Then he smiled, and laughed, and that was how they moved through the front hall and into the kitchen where Mark's daughter Honey sat, eating beans on toast.

"Hello Honey-bee," Ricardo said, high-fiving her.

"Come on then," he said, depositing the bag on the counter. "Try it on."

Mark shook his head at him, trying to look cross. He pulled out a red hat with bells on, and a little red and green collar. Honey laid her fork down, interested now. Ricardo was smiling so wide he couldn't speak, and laid across the counter instead, head propped up on his hands. Mark did his best to be disapproving. He put the hat on, and Ricardo caught Honey's eye. Mark put the collar on, and Honey laughed.

"Hey you," Mark said facing Honey and scowling at her. She laughed harder.

Ricardo had fallen so far down that his cheek rested on the countertop. He laughed helplessly. "You look adorable," he said.

“I used to be head of this house,” said Mark, turning from cross to wistful with a sigh. Ricardo leaned over to adjust his hat, making sure that Mark’s ears weren’t covered.

“Perfect,” he said. “Honey, your Daddy is going to be the best elf at Christmas.”

“My Daddy isn’t an elf,” she said, and Ricardo gasped.

“Oh no,” he said, putting his hands over Mark’s ears, and Honey laughed again.

\---

The nursery Christmas party was a rousing success, with more than half the parents dressed as elves, the staff as reindeer and Juan as a very jolly, rather short, Father Christmas, handing out small gifts from the nursery to each child, and small gifts from the children to each parent. 

Mark, balancing Honey on one arm and a large toilet-roll christmas tree on the other, surveyed the aftermath.

“Amazing how much mess they can make when they’re so small,” he said. Next to him, Matt laughed. 

“Small people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” he said, and Mark snorted. 

“Small pots shouldn’t call small kettles small,” he said back, and Matt, in the middle of drawing an aghast breath, choked on it and had a coughing fit. In the middle of it all Juan showed up. HE patted Matt on the back.

“Are you alright?”

Matt wheezed and waved a hand at him. “All fine,” he managed. “Just all been a bit much for me.”

Mark made a face at Juan. “Where were you Juan? You missed the whole party!”

Juan looked sad. “I know,” he said. “I was very disappointed. But it looks like you had a really good time.”

He reached over and adjusted the brim of Honey’s new bobble hat. “Cool hat,” he said, “Where did you get it?”

Honey looked a little unsure. “Santa,” she said, and regarded Juan with some suspicion. 

Juan’s jaw dropped. “I missed Santa?”

“He missed Santa,” Mark cried. “How will he get his presents now, Honey?”

She frowned a little, thought about it, and said, “Santa will deliver them on his sleigh.”

Juan smiled. “Oh good,” he said. “I’m glad you know how it works.”

\---

Later that evening Ricardo was lying Mark’s settee with a cup of tea. He was still smiling at Mark, hadn’t stopped all day. Mark put his own tea on the table and lifted Ricardo’s legs so that he could sit down. He picked up his tea, then put it down again and picked up the discarded elf hat instead and, sprawling across Ricardo, tugged it down onto his head.

Ricardo laughed.

“You made a very nice reindeer,” Mark said.

Ricardo touched a hand to his hat. “Are you saying this doesn’t suit me?”

“Well I’m not sure it quite suits your hair.”

“Rafa had to adjust my antlers earlier to fit through my hair. I’m just not cut out for Christmas.”

Mark rolled his eyes. “You look like you’re doing just fine to me,” he said, and Ricardo smiled at him. Mark picked up his tea, resting it on Ricardo’s legs and settling into the settee. 

“Merry Christmas,” Ricardo said, with his hat balanced precariously on his hair, and Mark smiled back.


End file.
